Sunday, February 26, 2012

My kid is such a ham

I love watching Sweetie Pea's personality develop and come out. He is getting to be SUCH a little comedian! He definitely knows when we find something funny and coyly repeats himself, delighted in our reaction. He also has his own idea of what he finds humorous (for example, the word "ooopsie!" and Goofy falling in the pool on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) and I can't get enough of his squealy little giggle. So just for fun, here's my silly boy being silly:

Clomping around in Mama's boots

"That kid took my train!"

...one example of what we get when we tell him to "say cheese!"

Looking a little white trash but cute nonetheless ;)

...aaaand the other example of his "say cheese" face. Don't ask me what's going on with his little Chippendale moves, cause I have no idea.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Time Warp Tuna Chowder


I am about to introduce you to one of our favorite new dinner recipes around here. It's amazing for so many reasons: it's fast (ridiculously, super fast, like lightspeed from the time you start cooking to the time you're eating soup, hence why I call it Time Warp Tuna Chowder), it's cheap, and it's GOOD.

In addition to watching Sweets on Fridays, my mom will often text me in the middle of the day and say "I'm making soup/chicken parm/something equally delicious for dinner, do you want me to make you some too?"I jokingly refer to this as Mom's Takeout, but it really is awesome to not only pick up my son at the end of a long week, but dinner too! Recently, this recipe was on the Friday takeout menu, and it's appeared in our dinner rotation multiple times since. I usually have most of the ingredients on hand, but let's just say I had to buy everything (except milk and chicken boullion, I always have those) - this chowder would cost me:
Can of tuna   .99
Small bunch of celery    .99
Box of scalloped potatoes     1.59
Can of creamed corn     .49
Total = $4.06    For a hot, comforting dinner!

It makes great lunch leftovers, too. Whip up a pot today, you won't be sorry!

You will need:

4 cups water
1 teaspoon chicken boullion
1 box scalloped potatoes
1 cup chopped celery
1 can tuna
2/3 cup milk
1 can creamed corn

In a medium pot, combine water, boullion, celery, scalloped potatoes and sauce mix. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer 15 minutes, Add tuna and milk, simmer 10 more minutes. Add corn, heat through. BAM! Eat some chowder.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

{Fluffy February} Weakness, thy name is cloth diapers.

Remember when I said like 2 weeks ago that I didn't need any more diapers? Well, I still don't, just to be clear. But then I found a couple of good deals and.....


.....yeah. Six new pockets. But here's my justification: the bottom row are all Happy Heinys and we LOVE Happy Heinys. I've been wanting to try the snap version (we currently have all velcro) because they supposedly last longer and how could I turn down those fabulous prints for $9 a diaper? The top row are all Bum Genius and I've been dying to try them out for the longest. Cottonbabies had a buy 2, get 1 free deal, which averaged out to an insanely reasonable price for 3 diapers and six inserts. And, they're all one size diapers, which means they should fit Sweets until he potty trains, and then can be recycled for the next child. See, I'm really saving money. Right? 

Right.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

My Little Parrot

I am just amazed at how Sweets' vocabulary is exploding! It is crazy how much he has picked up in one short week. And let me tell you, that kid is funny. He already knew the word mess, and can identify when something is a mess. So Thursday upon arriving home from work, we walked in the door to discover that our dog had gotten his teeth on some newspaper and logs that Hubs left near the wood stove and shredded them to bits all over the kitchen. Sweets immediately pointed and declared the situation "a mess!" to which I responded, "yup, doggy made a mess. A big mess." "BIG mess!" echoed my little parrot, and he proceeded to toddle around the kitchen while I cleaned up, pointing at every scrap of paper and wood and reminding me that it was "a BIG mess!" A few minutes later, my dad arrived to pick him up for his weekly sleepover at GaGa and PaPa's and I said, "tell PaPa what the doggy made," and sure enough, he chirped "a BIG mess!" I felt like we had a full-on conversation!

Other words of the week:
Dog poop (hmmm, his vocab is definitely pet-influenced!)
Yellow
Pink
Green
Purple
Orange
Mo (this is what he calls his sitter's daughter, Morgan)
ICE cold (hilarious! My hands are always super cold, and the other day he flinched as I was changing his diaper, and I said "I'm sorry, Mommy's hands are ice cold, aren't they?" and now he walks around saying "ICE cold!")
Granola (so random)
Here you go! (which is what I say when I hand him something)
Ella (his little buddy)
Baby (this he picked up from a few of his favorite books, don't get any ideas!)
And the crowning accomplishment: he was THIS close to saying "I love you" last night! It totally melted Hubs and I and turned us into complete mushballs. Because there's nothing in the whole world like hearing your child say he loves you.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

{Fluffy February} Happy Heinys

Ok, Fluffy February post #2! Today I'm highlighting the Happy Heinys pocket diaper, which happens to make up the majority of our stash. They come both sized and one-size - we have all one-size diapers, which means they are designed to fit a baby from birth to potty training. How, you might ask? Well, through the miracle of rise adjustment! Behold:

Those snaps on the front of the diaper make it possible to adjust the size of the diaper and get a perfect fit, no matter how small or large your munchkin is. This is definitely the most generously-sized brand of diapers we have, and I am confident they will fit Sweetie Pea until he potty trains. I can't say that about all of the diapers we have! Sweets is on the largest rise setting right now because he is so long-waisted, and I generally have to double-stuff them because he has become a very heavy-wetter.

Each Happy Heiny comes with two super soft and absorbent microfiber inserts. The small one can be used by itself when your baby is tiny (and hence, you have adjusted the diaper to be tiny as well), the large one can be used by itself as your child grows, or you can use them together to give you maximum absorbency.

Soooooo clean and soft! The lining of the diaper is microfleece, which allows moisture to pass through it into the insert without your child feeling wet. The outer layer of the diaper is made of PUL, which is waterproof. For those of you who are unfamiliar with cloth diaper terminology, these are referred to as pocket diapers because of the opening in the back of the diaper that allows you to stuff it with inserts. They are great because a) you can put as much or as little absorbency inside as you need and b) because you pull the inserts out to wash and dry them, they tend to dry pretty quick. 

I really love the Happy Heinys. They go to the sitter's house every day with Sweets because they are so easy to use - with their simple Velcro closure they go on as quickly as a disposable. Drawbacks: because they are Velcro, they tend to stick together in the wash and untangling the diaper chain when they come out of the dryer can be a little time-consuming. And these occasionally wick moisture onto Sweets' clothes a bit more than some of our other brands, and I'm not totally sure why. I think it has something to do with the way the microfleece lining is sewn to the outer shell. And a disadvantage of all pocket diapers is that you have to spend some time stuffing all the inserts back in so they're ready to grab and use. I don't mind, though, I just plop myself on the couch and zone out to Grey's while I stuff diapers. 

My rating on a scale of 1 to 5: 
4!


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Fluffy February!

I'm trying something on for size this month - a theme! I thought I'd spend some time in February sharing some information on cloth diapering, since I love it so much (and February is the month of love, after all!). We'll see how it goes...this is my first attempt at posting a video that's more than 15 seconds long, and I'm aware that it has some issues - namely, I took it with my ipad and for some reason I can't get it to fill up the frame, but oh well. Live and learn! So without further ado...here's an intro to Fluffy February!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Wordy Wednesday

It's the opposite of Wordless Wednesday today! I found myself trying to figure out how many words Sweets is saying now, so I started a list a few days ago, and it's more than I thought. At 18 months, Sweetie Pea's vocabularly consists of:

No (possibly his favorite word of all)
Mama
Dada
GaGa
PaPa
GiGi
Ceeeeezer (the dog)
star
moon
milk
juice
cheese
hot sauce (so funny! Every time I open the fridge, he makes a beeline for Hubs' Tabasco, and I always say "no, no, we don't play with the hot sauce, and lo and behold, he added a new phrase to his vocab!)
blue
bye bye
car
truck
bus
boat
mess (this he learned from me constantly saying that the doggy makes a mess)
hat
shoes
boots
bubbles
toothbrush (this comes out as boobaash)
brush
block
book
oh no
uh oh
go
off (learned courtesy of GaGa and PaPa's dog who is always climbing up on things he shouldn't!)
hot (an essential when you have a woodstove)
dirt
ball
Bubba (his sitter's son's nickname)
ni ni (night night)
Elmo (often pronounced Mo-Mo, or El-Mo-Mo. So stinkin' cute.)
nose
poo poo
turtle
stuck
toot (both as a train sound and a *certain* sound that comes out of little toddler bottoms ;)

Sounds:
choo choo
woof
meow
moo
tweet tweet
ah-choo
tick tock
bbbbbbbb (his motor noise)
fffffffffffff (that's an elephant, in case you don't speak toddler)
fffffsh! (that's a whale)
chick chick chick (that's the sound of a squirrel chewing some nuts ;)
quaaaaack

Letters:
S
O
I'm not totally sure how or why he learned these two letters, but he did. He can correctly identify an O most times, and an S sometimes. If you ask him what any other letter is, he will tell you S or O. So we're working on that ;)

He is also starting to string together two-word phrases like "bye bye mama," "dada's milk," "Bubba's shoes," and "blue star."

He's a total sponge right now - we really have to watch what we say (i.e. describing someone as a douche bag is probably best done after Sweets goes to bed). 18 months rocks!